The Great Robot Replacement
Spring – Wk 9: Automation as Demoralization | Nakedface in Texas | Plastic Crap is Shrinking Your Balls
Automation as Demoralization
Anything you can do, AI can do better.
That's the promise behind all the tech bro hype, the Singularity prophecies, and every nightmarish sci-fi fantasy that deals with the subject. One day soon, robots powered by advanced neural networks will think faster, remember more, work more precisely, and love deeper than any human ever could.
That's the story, anyway, and anyone who believes it is left staring into a deep abyss that stares back with digitized eyes. Some say it's humbling, but the idea seems deadening to me—perhaps intentionally so.
Yet the drumbeat rumbles on, from news media to movies to futuristic music. In the robodog-eat-dog world of evolutionary competition, artificial intelligence will outperform the naked ape.
You might as well pucker up, buttercup.
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Nakedface in Texas
To be honest, I've rarely had a great time in Texas, but I do love Texans. It's like having a good friend who lives in a shady trailer park. You're not eager to visit, but you're always happy to see him.
My recent excursion to Houston was better than usual, if only because the state was full-on nakedface. Everywhere my wandering took me, I was greeted by smiles, drawls, and Southern women wearing shorts cut so high, you might as well be walking through a forest of smooth legs under a canopy of creased underbun.
The air was so muggy, though, it was like swimming through a bowl of hot soup. Houston's inhabitants paddled from one bar to the next on rivers of sweat, blending flavors in a thick multicultural stew.
There were cholo bikers riding space age butt rockets. Each bike was equipped with iPhone navigation, hydraulic lift kits, neon ground lights, and ghetto-bumping speakers—all of them playing different songs. It seemed imprudent to tell them their choice of music wasn’t appropriate around small children and conservative Muslims, but I suspect they already knew.
Out on the public green, there were throngs of protesters waving Arab flags in solidarity with Palestine. Most of the women wore chadors, but at one point, a pale white girl with dyed Crayola-red hair walked by with a low-cut tank top and high-cut shorts. Her shirt said FREE PALESTINE. I imagined her walking through a market in Hebron dressed like that, and wondered what sort of solidarity she would enjoy there.
Around every corner, there were psychotic hobos using aggressive tactics that seemed closer to extortion than begging. One evening, as I stood outside my downtown hotel, a crusty white dude started swinging around one of those long squeegees in the porte-cochère. At first it looked like he was gonna beat the valet to death, but apparently he just wanted to wash some windows. No takers.
The next day, a young black guy came up in a fluster. He punched at invisible assailants on the sidewalk and gibbered incoherent oracles with frothy gobs of spit lining his dry lips. He screamed at my companions, “I'm stressed out! I'm stressed out! You don't understand! I'm stressed out like a man!”
Some guys have a harder time relaxing than others.
My favorite part of that week-long trip was saying “Howdy” to all the arena riggers and rowdy rednecks down there. That is, all except for one pasty ballroom rigger who had to be somebody's nephew in the union. Other than that bureaucratic dork, the Texas riggers were fine company for a melancholy soul. But we’ll keep all that between me and them.
The journey back home was unremarkable, save for one brief glimpse into the era ahead. If you've ever been to Houston's international airport, you know it's crumbly on the outside and totally boring on the inside. The drab atmosphere forces travelers to retreat into their smartphones and laptops.
Walking into the baggage claim, I saw this future shock black kid playing some VR game out in public. He had goggles over his eyes and a mask over his mouth, oblivious to the outside world. He rocked his head and thrashed his hands as if he'd dropped a ten-strip of geltabs at a Dead show.
An elderly white airport employee watched over him protectively. He must have been worried that someone out there couldn’t resist pushing a blind man over if given the chance.
Waving like seaweed in a bay, the kid was lost in an internal world that was completely external to his mind.
Welcome to the New Normal 2.0.
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Plastic Crap is Shrinking Your Balls
Radical feminists and ardent misanthropists should be excited. All the plastics in the modern environment are shriveling men's balls like a pile of salt dumped on a throbbing slug.
As big box retail fills our lives with colorful junk made from dead dinosaur blood, they're simultaneously zapping all the testosterone and healthy sperm out of existence.
According to a meta-analysis conducted by Dr. Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, global sperm counts have been cut in half over the past forty years or so—from 99 million sperm per milliliter in 1973, down to 47 million in 2011. It must take forever to count those things.
"All we can say is it has significantly declined with no indication that the rate is slowing down."
Her nut-popping paper has been ignored for years now, probably for the same reason stubborn dudes refuse to go to the doctor. It’s just easier that way—at least for a time.
WTSP Channel 10 in Tampa reports:
Swan says certain occupations, like people who manufacture pesticides, have been shown to have zero sperm along with men who work with lead.
Other factors contributing to low sperm counts include smoking, binge drinking, obesity and stress.
"The number of stressful events you’ve had in just the last couple months lower sperm count," Swan said.
If this article had been published when I was still in Houston, I could have warned that crazy homeless guy about this. Hopefully, he reads the news.
Swan believes chemicals from plastics are getting into our bodies, impacting our hormones and ultimately interfering with our reproductive functions. Phthalates are the culprit. Remember that word. Phthalates are chemicals in plastics that lower the bodies’ testosterone.
So how do phthalates get in our bodies?
Swan says they're everywhere. Any food product that is passed through a soft tube in the manufacturing process has likely absorbed harmful chemicals that could creep into our bodies.
"If you eat unprocessed food, particularly, if you can afford it, organic food, then you are avoiding a lot of exposure," Swan said.
However, it's not just food. Swan said creams, nail polishes, fragrances and other health, beauty and cleaning products are oozing with phthalates.
In regards to sperm counts, much of the damage is done when a male is forming inside the mother's uterus.
Swan said the chemicals get into a woman's body, then into the testicles of the fetus and change development.
"When that child becomes old enough to have sperm, they’ll have a low sperm count and be infertile," she said.
Swan predicts that, at the current rate of testicular degeneration, all men will be shooting blanks by 2045.
Coincidentally, if Google’s Ray Kurzweil is correct, artificial intelligence will outstrip human cognition that same year. A neutered Mankind will give way to superintelligent Machines.
Without a doubt, biochemical feminization will make for a smoooooth transition.
No robot or computer will ever be able to appreciate or articulate the brilliance of Mr. John Cazale, in five of the best films ever made, all in the 1970s. It will have nothing at all to offer me.